


Brutalized

by ScarletteStar1



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Anger, Angst, F/M, Hand Job, Hate Sex, Penny Dreadful - Freeform, Toxic Relationsip, Weird, abusive dynamics, hurt comfort, implied BDSM, malnessa, older man younger woman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 23:34:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15035759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletteStar1/pseuds/ScarletteStar1
Summary: "We here have been brutalized by loss. It has made us brutal in return."Each night, Vanessa submits to brutal sessions with Sir Malcolm as a way of trying to make amends, and he just wants to make her feel something.





	Brutalized

_We here have been brutalized with loss._

_It has made us brutal in return._

She’d said these words to Mr. Chandler and suggested with utmost confidence that if he could not tolerate what he’d seen he could leave their house. Her voice had not quavered, nor had her posture crumbled for an instant. But as soon as Ethan’s eyes had broken from hers in an emotion she could not name, Vanessa’s gaze fluttered anxiously toward Sir Malcolm. He stared at a fixed point on the carpet, perhaps at bird or flower or spiral design, his face stony as ever, his brows knitted thickly together. It was impossible for anyone else to know the fury that simmered under his layers of wool and velvet. And no one knew how Sir Malcolm would come to relieve this frustration, no one but Vanessa.

They could not know that when he spoke of fealty, there was another faithful obligation Vanessa had undertaken, that she’d sworn herself to him in ways dark and twisted in her desperate attempt at atonement.

She knew his temper would be voracious on the night of their compact.

 _I’m with you,_ Ethan had pledged. Holding his gaze, his eyes gentle as a fawn, Vanessa had replied, _And I’m with you._

She could practically hear Sir Malcolm’s growl from across the room. Then, as though to drive the point home how insignificant and unloved she was, he gave her the truth, that she’d been bait that night at the zoo, and nothing more. He’d known Mina would not be there, and that the creature sought Vanessa instead. And he’d used her. Again.

Had not her veins already been bloodless and her heart completely frozen by their journey of agony, she would have felt the pain of this betrayal. As it was, she merely inhaled and exhaled deeply. He would feel for them both. He would at least feel something.

Later, after both Victor and Ethan left and Sembene had turned down all of the lights, Vanessa rose from her seat by the fire place. She looked at Sir Malcolm and he nodded. It was the code. She knew to prepare herself. She went to her room and stripped out of her black, lace gown until she stood completely nude in the spare light of a single candle and the small fire she’d laid in her hearth. She began to roll a cigarette for herself, but she heard his steps on the stair and immediately set down her tobacco and papers. She went to her bed, pulled down the covers and laid on her stomach. She laid her face on her pillow so she faced away from the door.

Before long she heard her door open. She did not move. How many nights had she listened to the turn of the knob and the click as it shut again? How many nights had she listened to the rustle as he removed his coat, unbuttoned his vest, loosened his tie, rolled up his sleeves? She had memorized this beginning part as though it were part of a symphony. But what came next was always a surprise and sometimes a shock. She never knew whether to expect the burning drips of hot wax, or the searing flash of a switch on her backside. He could be quite inventive, having utilized riding crops between her thighs, wooden spoons against her haunches, and heated oil on the small of her back. Or he could find a method that seemed to please him (binding her wrists with the very tie he'd removed from his neck, and scratching red tracks into her back with his finger nails) and use it for nights on end. She took slow, even breaths as she awaited his decision. It seemed though she waited for quite some time, and when she could bear it no more, she looked up and found him standing next to her bed, scowling down at her.

“Whatever will I do with you?” He asked and she knew better than to answer. “You cruel, little girl who ruined my life and now has the gall to flirt with men in my own home. What can I do to teach you your place, to make you learn?”

At this she rolled over and sat up. “Do you think I haven’t learned? Do you think you are teaching me a lesson by beating and burning me in these midnight sessions of ours? No. I know it is only by brutalizing me by night that you can bear to stand upright by day, so I submit myself to your hand, but do not for one moment think I need you to teach me, or that you play no less wicked a part than I in this savage drama we call our life.” She spat her words at him with a ferocity he’d not seen from her in a long time. He lunged at her with an odd mix of rage and desire in his eyes as he wrapped a hand around her throat. _Ah_ , she thought. _So this is to be my torture tonight. He will deprive me of air, perhaps until I lose consciousness, or until I perish, even. Either way, it matters little._

“Do you want him?” Sir Malcolm hissed. He did not squeeze Vanessa’s neck, rather caressed it in a manner that was equally as terrifying.

“And what if I do?”

“Then at least I know you still feel something,” he said. “Why, oh, why can I not make you feel something, Vanessa Ives?”

“One must have a heart in order to generate emotion, and that is something you plucked clean away from me long ago.” Her eyes challenged his and she awaited the increase of pressure on her neck, but it did not come.

She shivered, suddenly cold from being exposed. He dropped his hand from her neck and sat down on the edge of her bed, put his face in his hands and sighed. For some reason, Vanessa suddenly imagined Ethan Chandler’s sad, brown eyes watching them, observing the scene of twisted depravity they created with only the effort it took to breathe in the same proximity of one another. She saw Ethan exhale heavily and shake his head, quietly bewildered by the bond of pain Sir Malcolm and Vanessa had forged and would not forsake.

In what might have been the most bizarre and deviant moment they would ever share, Vanessa crept silent as a jungle creature behind Sir Malcolm. She spread her legs and wrapped them around his back, then knotted her ankles together at his navel. He sat up a bit straighter and she felt the hitch of surprise in his breath. “Shhh,” she admonished.

She wove her arms beneath his, and embraced him, pressing her naked breasts against his shirt-covered back. She held him tightly like this, mashing her cheek against him until her face was sore. She crushed herself into him and constricted until he returned the pressure by caressing her arms and stroking her calves. With her ear against him, she could hear not only his heart thump, but the moans of want and need he uttered as he touched her flesh.

He shuffled and shifted slightly so he could unbutton his trousers, and then he took her hand and slid it in so she could take hold of his shaft which ached and dripped for her. She rubbed her thumb over the sticky moisture at the tip, bringing it down so her fist could slide over him in silky waves. When he threw his head back in a lusty groan, she was able to catch his earlobe between her teeth and bite and suck until he cried out and she felt him release a hot ribbon of his wet seed on her wrist.

They stayed entwined as they were for quite some time, quiet, as his breath stilled. Finally, Sir Malcolm spoke, but now his voice was calm, almost tender as he said, “Whatever will I do with you?”

Vanessa replied, “I dare not say, but please do not try to make me feel. You are the one who feels for both of us now.” She nuzzled the side of his neck with her lips.

“Will you leave me for him?”

“I believe you know I cannot,” she said. “Even if I wanted to.”

The truth of their current reality was almost as brutalizing as the loss they had already endured.

**Author's Note:**

> I lowkey hate myself for writing this as I totally hate to romanticize toxic relationships in anyway, but it also was just something that I had to go for, so. . . ugh. . . also I highkey am obsessed with Malnessa and will write something a bit more healthy (wait what?) for them again soon. Right. Thanks for reading and I love your comments. . .


End file.
